Page 11 of The Science of Attraction

Paddy shrugged, still not meeting my eyes.

“Right?”

He flicked me a glare but nodded.

“Okay then, well, I’ve been doing a bit of my own research in case you’re interested?—”

Paddy’s scowl said he absolutely wasn’t, but I soldiered on.

“—and from what I can tell, wool classers spend their time at a classing table, right? Sorting the fleeces into categories and... stuff?”

He sighed and held up his right hand as if to say,I only have one hand, remember?

I tut-tutted and said, “I didn’t take you for a quitter, Paddy.”

That earned me an epic eye-roll, which I ignored.

“Five months ago, you couldn’t even move your arm. Now you can lift your shoulder, raise your hand, and we’re building that strength in your grip. Who knows what you’ll be able to accomplish in another five months?”

His jaw ticked as he chewed that over for a few seconds, but I didn’t get to hear his response before my phone rang. When I pulled it from my pocket, Bron’s name flashed on the screen.

“Sorry, Paddy, but I need to answer this.” I walked off a few steps and put the phone to my ear. “Make it quick. I’m at work.”

“Thenyoutalk to him,” my sister huffed, and the next second, I had Connor on the line.

“Hey.” The surly notes of an adolescent sulk dripped from my nephew’s sixteen-year-old lips.

“Hey, man. What have you done to get your mum’s knickers in a twist this time?”

“Nothun.”

I counted to five.

“I told her I was gonna quit school after this year,” he blurted. “Ikeeptelling her. I don’t wanna go to university. It’s a waste of time.”

I sighed. “Yep, that would’ve done it.” I glanced back at Paddy who made no pretence that he wasn’t eavesdropping. He showed me his watch as if to say hurry up and I rolled my eyes and put my back to him. “So, who was it this time?”

Connor went silent for a moment, then answered much more softly, “Fucking Keegan and his dipshit mates.”

Fuck.My chin dropped to my chest. Bron and I had been battling Connor’s school the last few months regarding that particular group of bullies, although they weren’t the only ones. The school had come down heavily on the worst of those responsible and brought in their parents, but things had simply moved off-campus, which made it harder to target.

Connor was a great kid, smart and talented. But his popularity, and even his prowess on the basketball court, had offered zero protection when he’d stood up against the bullies of a nerdy gay kid a year below him. James had been caught kissing his older closeted boyfriend in a local park and was then outed to the whole school on social media.

The boyfriend was a well-liked senior who’d insisted the kiss had been uninvited—yeah, right. I’d seen them talking alone together on more than one occasion in the vicinity of Bron’s house, but once they were caught, the senior dropped James like the proverbial hot potato, leaving the poor guy to bear the brunt of the homophobic onslaught that followed, along with Connor who’d later stood up for him and was thereby guilty by association.

My nephew was as straight as they made them, and although he might drive Bron up the wall with his nebulous ideas about his future, no one could fault his hard-core sense of social justice or his courage. He’d make a great pit bull for a worthy cause.

“So, what happened this time?” I pressed.

He huffed, “The usual.”

God save me from teenagers. I waited him out.

“Just name-calling and shit,” he finally admitted. “But they fucked my bike up. Ripped off the chain and the seat and wrecked the rims. Mum had to leave work and come pick me up.”

Jesus Christ.I’d bought him the damn bike so he didn’t have to face a second group of wankers on his daily bus ride. “Were you in school? Was James with you?”

Connor hesitated. “We were outside the shopping centre on Logan. When I saw them coming, I told James to run.”

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